As your city navigates reopening during COVID-19 (Coronavirus), it’s important to evaluate brand messaging for clarity, accuracy, and value. This is key to maintaining customer trust, and to continuing to generate interest and valuable leads through online marketing, no matter what.

HOW TO IMPROVE BRAND MESSAGING DURING COVID-19

Here are 5 tips the GoEpps Marketing team recommends to build better brand messaging during COVID-19.

1. Skip the Fluff: As you plan content marketing during this time, simplicity is your friend. Avoid starting with “In this troubling times…” and similar lingo. Your clients and potential customers are already bombarded with this language day after day. People need to know if you are open. Get down to brass tacks: stick with the simplest, clearest possible communication of the facts. Leave the rest on the cutting room floor.
2. Focus on Customers’ Concerns: It’s tempting to lean on overused language because you want to reassure your customers. But in reality, the best way to do that is give them the information they need so they’re not confused about how you’re doing business. Are you taking new appointments? Are you open (and have your hours changed)? How are you conducting meetings? Focus on what customers need to know, and put the answers to those questions front and center on any COVID-19 messaging you add.
3. Communicate Service Levels: Since things are changing and adapting, it’s a good idea to go into detail about your service levels. Explain what is (and isn’t) operational, availability of teams and staff, and what they can expect when it comes to ordering products and services. Be upfront about any delays, and place any information about changes related to COVID-19 prominently on your homepage and relevant landing pages.
4. Keep Info Up-to-Date: With things constantly changing, it’s critical to keep any services information up-to-date as restrictions shift and reopening plans change. Make a point of updating information on your website as soon as possible. And don’t forget any listings like Google My Business, Yelp, and social media platforms. If you have a recording that prompts callers, make sure any new information is the first thing people hear when they call.
5. Show that You’re Following Guidelines: Valuing customer safety is paramount. Take care to demonstrate with your written content, photos, and videos that you are following recommended health and safety guidelines. Pictures with staff in Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) are both informative and reassuring. If customers will be required to follow any guidelines when doing business with you, be sure to share those details.

These simple steps avoid confusion, are clear about any changes, and don’t “bury the lead” by hiding what your customers need to know in a bunch of unnecessary text.

BRAND MESSAGING DONE RIGHT

Let’s look at an example of COVID-19 brand messaging done well by Rio SEO:

This is “above the fold” on their homepage so customers see it right away. COVID-19 updates are clearly centered. And they’re offering resources that demonstrate they’re coming from a place of confidence, knowledge, and expertise. There’s also a clear path to those resources in multiple, strategic locations on the page, so it’s easy for customers to take action to find what they’re looking for.

BENEFITS OF BETTER COVID-19 MESSAGING

Improving how you talk about COVID-19 is a better reflection on your brand.

• It’s honest. You’re focusing on the facts, plain and simple.
• It’s valuable. Your customers and clients get what they’re looking for.
• It builds credibility. People believe you know your stuff when you demonstrate compliance, and a commitment to their health and safety.
• It’s positive. It shows you’re taking a proactive approach, without being pie in the sky.

You may not know all the particulars of how reopening will shape the way you do business. But every step you take to communicate clearly with your customers will help forge a path forward that benefits everyone.